Friday, March 23, 2012

Thousands of people are expect to descend on the Mall in Washington,
D.C., on Saturday to celebrate not believing in God. It's being called a
sort of "Woodstock for Atheists," a chance for atheists to show their
power in numbers and change their image.

The "Reason Rally" could attract up to 30,000 people; organizer David Silverman says it marks a coming-of-age for nonbelievers.

"We'll
look back at the Reason Rally as one of the game-changing events when
people started to look at atheism and look at atheists in a different
light," Silverman says.

Silverman, president
of American Atheists, says this is a celebration, with famous atheists
like Richard Dawkins, funny atheists like Eddie Izzard, and musical
atheists like the rock group Bad Religion, who sings about "a careless
creation where there's no above ..."

But the
main point of the rally, Silverman says, is not to tweak the faithful.
It's to encourage closeted atheists to take heart.

"The
message is that if you can come out, you can out come out," he says.
"And if you can't come out, at least you'll know you're not alone, and
maybe sometime soon you'll be able to come out of the closet to your
family."

'Coming Out Of The Closet'

Silverman says this is their moment, as important to atheists as the
Stonewall riots were to the gay-rights movement four decades ago. But
fellow nonbeliever Hemant Mehta says it's not easy to reveal your
nonbelief. Atheism has an image problem.

Mehta, who writes a blog called The Friendly Atheist,
says openly dismissing God in the most religious country in the West
requires courage: You risk losing friends, family and even jobs because
of your nonbelief. In poll after poll, he says, people say they don't
like atheists; one showed that people think an atheist is more likely to
steal than a rapist.

"People have this
notion that atheists are immoral, not trustworthy, unelectable," Mehta
says. "How do you change that at such a huge level? It starts by people
everywhere just coming out of the closet as atheists."

Mehta
helps run an atheist charity, and he's been invited to megachurches,
such as Willow Creek near Chicago, to explain why he doesn't believe in
God. He says atheists need to take a page from the gay-rights movement:
If people know and love an atheist, they'll be less likely to stigmatize
them.

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About Me

To borrow some words from Drake, "I'm more than just a number." But if I WERE a number, it would be 7. Since it's God's number, the 7th day is one to rest, and... well, I think it rocks. But if life were a scale of 1-10, then me being a 7 fits too, because I'm not perfect. But I'm not your average girl, either. :-) I'm 30, a Christ-follower, slightly off kilter (but aren't all "ar-teeests"?), and happily married to Keiron, my solid and strong rock. And Techie-extraordinaire. We are the proud parents of a baby girl, Zoe. Hope you enjoy my rantings, don't take my sarcasm too seriously and know that comments are welcome. Very welcome... ahem, HINT, HINT, HINT! But enough about me, time for this 7 to give it a rest. xoxox

"While reading your blog I often sense a certain amount of conviction on your behalf, which makes me wonder why isn’t everyone reading the blogs of a woman who actually “gets it.”Don, at Minus The Bars"A curious mix of the sacred and profane...too nice for a run of the mill blog? "Joe, my brother, author of The Blog of Blogs"Are you really bored or something?"Joscelyne, my sister"Pretty f****ing intense."Reader Brooke Farmer, on this entry.

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